


Elder Scrolls Skyrim, Skyforge Apprentice

by Hellblazer2388



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellblazer2388/pseuds/Hellblazer2388
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eldur Gray-Mane, son or Eorlund is trained in the art of smithing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elder Scrolls Skyrim, Skyforge Apprentice

The Elder Scrolls...  
Skyforge Apprentice  
Austin H.

 

 

I’m glad I’m a Nord, but I can’t live up to the title. Part of one of the most true Nord families in all of Skyrim, the Graymanes. My father, Eorlund Gray-mane, is my roll model. He’s 65 years old. He is the greatest blacksmith in all of Skyrim. He once filled an order of weapons for the Stormcloaks so large that an army of one hundred was armed to the teeth. I’m also his apprentice. My name is Eldur Gray-mane and I’m 17 years old. I guess you could say I’m lean, but I get teased for not being all buff and they call me skinny. My name is Nordic for ‘Fire’. I guess my father had already had me for a blacksmith when I was born. My mother, who is 70 years old. Fralia Gray-Mane, she works a jewellery stall in the Market. My father makes the jewelery. I have three other siblings. Two Brothers and a sister, they’re all older than me. My two brothers are Thorald and Avulstein. Thorald was kidnapped by the Battle-Born clan who are apparently in association with the Thalmor. The damned High Elves. Avulstein is kind of competitive and gets mad easily. I remember one time when his battleaxe was leaning against the wall, I wanted to see it and I accidentally made his battleaxe fall on the ground. He chased me around the house flailing it in my battleaxe. My sister, Olfina, she’s super nice. Shes always cleaning the house and sweeping. She would always have to watch me while Mom and Dad were working, but as I got older I started to go with my dad while he works the Skyforge. The oldest, most sacred forge in Skyrim.

I was sleeping in my room when my dad came in and woke me up for training. He always wakes me up right when the sun is just peaking in on the horizon. I got dressed,  
shook my hair so it doesn’t look like I have been living in a skeever hole and we headed out the door. It was still dark outside and it was cold, but as soon as we go up the stone stairs leading up to the skyforge I can feel the heat of the forge warming me. When we get up there, I rolled up my sleeves a little and slipped on some leather gloves.  
“Okay son,” Said Eorlund. “today You’re going to make this.” My dad handed me a rolled up blueprints with a sword drawn on it, but I look at the blueprints with concern. It was the design for an Imperial sword. A gladius.  
“Dad, this is an Imperial sword!” I exclaimed. “growing up I was taught to despise the Imperials because of the Battle-Borns. Why am I learning their ways?”  
“Because son. I had no say in why the Battle-Borns and the Gray-Manes hate each other. I was wrong to lead you into thinking they were terrible people. I hope to make amends with them,” explained Eorlund. “Our clan and their clan used to be close allies. We looked out for eachother, but the civil war tore our families apart.”  
Dad eyes were glazed over remembering past memories of family feasts and get togethers with the Battle-Borns. He looked up and put his huge gnarled hands on my shoulders. “I want you to have the honours of forging the blade that may bring our families together once again.” I look at him with a smile getting progressively more enthusiastic and I give him a nod and he laughs wholeheartedly. “Thats a good man!”

“What are we making it out of?” I asked.  
“Skyforge steel,” He answered. I was shocked when he said skyforge steel because he is the only one who can work with the precious metal in all of Skyrim, and he must be going to teach me how to use it. “But first we must go get some corundum ore from Shearpoint Mountain. We have to get it from there because the magnetic force corresponding with the altitude of which we’re mining at makes it a different chemical formula for the ore, hence the name Skyforge steel. If we smelt that ore with some coarse iron, thats Skyforge steel.”  
“I figured it was from some specific place that you get it from. What do you do if it you run out of corundum ore on Shearpoint?” I asked.  
“It will never run out. The cold stone that becomes bare after removing the ore from the mountain converts into the ore itself. I cannot explain how it works, I don’t even know myself.” My mind is racing with questions to ask, but before I could ask anymore, my dad starts to say, “Well! Today you will study the design and make the handle of the sword, for thats the only part thats made out of wood. Here,” he hands me a chunk of ebony wood. A dark strong wood that’s quite dense and heavy. “Make it out of ebony. Take it over to the wood shop. We probably won’t be working with the forge today.”  
“Aww I was hoping to be able to make some rings or amulets for Mom.”  
“This is important Son,” said Eorlund in a tense tone. I just looked at him realizing how serious he’s being and did a double take at the wood shop then started towards it.

After a few hours of studying the design of the imperial sword and shaving down the dingy looking tough wood, I had the handle shape and now I’m just sanding it down making it smooth so whoever will be using it (and to be honest I don’t think anyone will be using it) won’t get blisters and slivers. I slowly sanded it down, thinking about my family and how dysfunctional it is. There’s a great downside to being a Nord, our ignorance and our temper. I was picked on as a kid for being a wimp and for being weak. I told my father about this and he got Avulstein to scare the kids who were picking on me. He just kicked the door open to outside and roared at the somewhat chasing them.Then after that the kids wouldn’t even speak to me. That’s not what I wanted. Trapped in my memories, I accidentally left the ebony on the sander for too long.  
“Oh Gods damn it to Oblivion!” I shouted.  
“Is that the tongue of my son when he’s alone?” I heard my mother’s voice through the door of the shop. “I have lunch for you,” she said with a polite tone. I got up and opened the door.  
“I’m sorry mother. Thank you,” I apologized and took the plate from her. “I was lost in thought and oversanded a piece for a sword. Now I have to go and get some more from the general shop. Could I have 15 septims so I could get some please?”  
“Of course son,” she gave me a small coinpurse from her dress pocket. “There should be plenty enough there.” I kissed her on the cheek and jogged to the shop just down the road. When I opened the door to the shop I heard the storekeeper say, “Welcome to Belethor’s shop! Take a look around, I’m sure I have what you need.” I walked straight to the counter and said, “I’m looking for ebony.”  
“The metal? No no no. I have none of that.”  
“No. You’re misunderstanding. I’m looking for the wood. Not the metal.”  
“Oh I have that,” he said simply. He ducked under his counter and drops a box on the counter full of chunks of it. I open the coinpurse and there is way more than I asked for.  
“How much?” I asked.  
“Fifty septims.”  
“Give ya forty.”  
“I will not barter with a kid. Fifty or beat it.”  
“What if I told you I’m the son of Eorlund Gray-mane and I need it for a skyforge blade?” I persuaded.  
“Uh-..... Well okay I guess. Forty,” he folds. I give him the coinpurse and lift the box off the table.  
“Thank you,” I said and I backed out of the shop.  
After some time, I had the perfect handle for the sword. My dad walks in the shop and  
says, “Good job Son! It’s time for dinner then I want you to reside to your room. We’ll have a tough day tomorrow.”  
“Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I answered with enthusiasm. I love it when my father compliments my work. It’s very reassuring. I take the handle, ran into my room, dropped the handle into my nightstand drawer, jogged out of my room and sat down at

the table. We were all talking for a good hour while eating roast and potatoes with gravy. After dinner, everyone went on with their regular business, but I went to my room, slipped off my socks, which felt so good, and layed in bed. I looked at the necklace that hangs off my neck and held it in my hand for a little while. It was a silver pendant with an anvil engraved into the smooth metal. After half an hour of just thinking of today, I nodded off to sleep.

 

I woke up with a terrible startle. Not from my dad laughing wholeheartedly, but the freezing chill of a pickaxe dad had laid on my leg!  
“Dad!” I exclaimed. “Why,” I whined half laughing.  
“We’re going mining, it’ll be great,” he said looking quite excited. Almost not staying in one place. “Get some extra layers, it’ll be freezing.”  
“The cold doesn’t bother me as much as it should. Is that a bad thing?”  
“Well, no. I guess it’s not,” he said agreeingly. He runs out of the room with his hands full with equipment. I let out a low chuckle. I love how my laugh sounds. My voice is pretty deep so it sounds malicious and wicked. I go grab a leather strap to put around my waist so I can put a sheathe on it. I’m bringing the ebony dagger that my dad made for me for my 16th birthday. It’s made of the metal, not the wood. I grabbed a scarf to shove under my jacket and some gloves. As we’re leaving the city, we get into the carriage waiting by the stables. Dad pays him and we get in. We start to move and my dad puts on the hugest smile in excitement. I swear to the gods when he goes mining, its as if hes a child again. It makes me happy. We’re not moving very fast, so it took a good hour and a half to get the the bottom of Shearpoint. We get off and my dad hands me a pickaxe and a backpack. We start walking up the spiraling mountain until it started to snow intensely, so we stopped to take out a few layers of clothes from out of our bags. All I took was a jacket and a scarf to cover my face. Dad took a huge dark brown jacket and he had welding goggles on. We walk for about 20 minutes.  
“You should have taken more,” said Eorlund, his pure white hair and beard almost camouflaged into the snowy background.  
“I know, but really I’m fine!” I almost have to shout over the blizzardy wind screaming in my ears. “are we almost there yet? I can’t hear a thing because of this weather.”  
“Yes we’re just about there. there’s a crevice in the side of the mountain that we’ll drop our things in. It’ll serve almost as a bunker,” explained Dad. We walk for about 10 more minutes and we get to the spot. I start to see a blotch of black through the snow. The landscape is very rocky and flat for a good distance. I notice the darkness I saw is the shadow of the cave. We stop about 15 feet from it, I can’t see into it at all because of how dark it is. Dad takes the backpack off his back and drops it in front of his feet and digs through it, and pulls out a rolled up scroll.  
“What’s that?” I asked.  
“Magelight scroll. We won’t be able to see if we go in there. We could make a fire, but I want to try this,” explained Eorlund. “You stay here. I’m going to go cast it into the cave. For all we know there’s a pack of ice wolves living in there, be ready.” Dad starts to cautiously jog towards the entrance to the cave. He hides behind a tall rock formation just a few feet from the entrance, looks at the scroll in his right hand, doesn’t even unroll it to read it, and just squeezes the paper crumpling it up in the middle. I start to see a light forming in his hand, his hand starts to shake from how hard he was clenching the scroll, and he lets go opening his palm towards the entrance and a bright projectile shoots from his hand into the cave. I start to run towards Dad and slide a little to stop beside him. I look in amazement in the cave to see a ball of light floating in the middle of the cave purging all darkness in it. There’s nothing but rock.  
“Okay, good,” says Eorlund with relief. “Look over there. There’s the deposit,” he points to the left just a little past the entrance, occupying some space on the surface of the mountain. We throw our filled bags into the cave and take an empty one to the deposit. We took a moment to admire the precious ore-filled rock.  
“Do we just start collecting it?” I asked as we both stare down at the deposit.  
“Yup. You know what to do?”  
“Yup. You taught me when I was five. Never forgot.”  
“Good man,” he chuckled. We start picking at it from both sides and in about 10 minutes, it was gone, every bit of it. We filled the bag perfectly. It was kind of heavy. We go and rest in the cave for a little while, just to catch our breath. We were exhausted.  
“Uhh, Dad? It’s starting to snow pretty hard,” I said with a touch of paranoia.  
“Hmm you’re right. No matter, we’ll spend the night. Good thing we brought some blankets and things to get a fire going,” he said simply. I could tell he’s been in a situation like this many times before. In about forty five minutes, we had a fire going and beds set. The magelight spell wore off about thirty minutes in. It got dark very fast, it almost seemed abnormal. we sat there and ate some food that he packed as well. I was sitting cross-legged on my blanket looking and admiring a small piece of metal we mined, holding it in my hand. Dad had his layers off, but I kept mine on.  
“Looks like regular corundum to me,” I said.  
“I guess in a way it kind of is, but did you notice its heavier?” he pointed out. I bounced it in my hand a few times it check the weight.  
“Oh yeah!” I laughed. Dad laughed too.  
“We should get some sl-” Dad was interrupted by a low growling noise from outside the cave. The look on his face was sheer terror. He threw his blanket on the fire, putting it out, lightly ran to his bag, rummaged through it and threw a bottle at me. I just barely caught it.

“Dad what in ob-”  
“Shh! Ice wolf,” Eorlund whispered. “Potent Invisibility potion. drink it, and it conceals your smell as well as your physical self. Use it to escape for a last resort.” Judging from the look on his face, he was serious. I see a huge shadow go across the snow that falls in front of the cave, then I see the wolf. It looked like a bear! I let out a small gasp and it stops. I was so terrified that I had both my hands on my mouth and had my legs tucked into my torso. “It’ll be fine.” He reaches under his blanket slowly and cautiously pulls out a steel sword with his right hand. It had a small little ‘sling’ sound to it too. He slowly walked to the entrance of the cave, without his shoes so I couldn’t hear him at all.  
“Dad no,” I whispered. He must’ve either ignored me or didn’t hear me because he left the cave. I slowly crawl to the exit and peek my head out. I see my dad out in the open flat looking around spinning in slow circles, and as he had his back towards the cave, from the roof of the cave the ice wolf hurls itself at my dad. He didn’t see it coming, but he turned around and hit it in the jaw with the hilt of the blade with a spinning motion. It got up shaking its head and making very feral and dangerous growls. The two are cautiously circling each other. Dad does a little spin with his blade.  
“Come on!” he shouts. The beast snaps at him and they both run at each other and they collide. The wolf had it’s forearms on his shoulders and was snapping at his face. I franticly get up and run to the bag of ores. It wasn’t as heavy as before. Probably from the adrenaline of all thats happening. I ran to the entrance of the cave to see what was happening, when I get there a jolt of corrupt terror pulses through my body to see my father and the wolf fall off the edge of the cliff. I could hear a mixture of shouting from my father and howling from the wolf, then a thud. Then a crack. I gasped so hard, the mixture of cold air and breathing in so hard made me ache. I ran as fast as I could to the edge of the cliff. There I saw my father laying limp with his leg bending a different direction and his head as well. The wolf lay beside him, but the wolf was moving. It got up, shook it’s fur, barked viciously at my father’s body, then marked its ground beside him. This made my chest hurt, tears were running down my face. A small whimpering cough comes from me out of sheer terror and anguish then the ice wolf looks directly at me. It’s eyes were glowing yellow it seemed. I could see it had a slash across its left eye and It was bleeding, but I look to the left so see blood-stained snow from under my father. I cried out in furiosity and sadness. The wolf snaps at me and runs up the right side of the mountain to get to me. I put my hood up and frantically started to run down the side of the mountain. I would’ve been sprinting down the mountain if it wasn’t for the snow and ice. As I’m running as fast as I could without slipping I could hear barking coming from where we once laid camp and I tested to see if I could go any faster, then I started sprinting, avoiding any ice patches I could see. I turn my head again to see if the wolf was following me and there it was, right behind me. I could see a corner in the mountainside to the left ahead so I attempted to slow down and make a sharp turn, but I ended up slipping and falling on my back. But once I stopped I saw the wolf slide right past me howling and yelping. I took a second to admire my luck and pulled the potion my father had given to me out of the bag. I opened up the bottle and gulped it all down. Instantly my whole body was transparent. The landscape around me had more contrast than it should have except for a glowing trail of dust that would lead me to my home. I could hear whispers in my ear, but could not make out anything that they were saying. I get up and start running, I even ran past the wolf without it noticing a thing. I just kept running.

The snow had stopped and the potion had worn off, but my anguish was still fresh. I had been walking for three hours when finally a carriage drives past me. I run to catch the carriage driver’s attention.  
“Hey! I need help!” I cried. The carriage stops. He was a Dark Elf. His eyes were pure black and his skin was quite pale.  
“Gods above boy. You look like you’ve seen a dead body,”  
“Oh jeez I wonder why,” I said sarcastically, trying to hold back tears.  
“Calm down kid. Where do you need to go?” I took a moment. I could feel my face cracking up and I broke down.  
“Whiterun!” I cried. “Take me home to Whiterun!”  
“Okay okay son. Just climb onto the back of the carriage and we’ll have you back home in no time,” he said reassuringly. After all that has happened in such a short time, I felt like I could live off the word ‘home’. I put my head between my knees and wrap my arms around my bent legs. I felt like the personified feeling of agony itself. My father is dead. nobody can do anything to bring him back. My long dark hair dried my tears as they were pushed up against my eyes. I fell asleep at one point watching the night sky, seeing the two moons of Masser and Secunda. They’re so hypnotizingly beautiful that they soothed me to sleep.

The carriage drive woke me up when we got to Whiterun. He asked me not to pay him and I thanked him. I walked directly to the door of my home and went inside. There I was instantly enthralled by my mother. She looked behind me expecting to see her husband, but father wasn’t here. I hugged her tighter and pushed my face into her right shoulder.  
“Mom. Dad’s dead,” I said guiltily. She let go of me, took a step back and had her hands to her mouth. All I could do was look down with traumatized open eyes. I had no more tears to shed. “It was an ice wolf. They both went off the edge of Shearpoint, but only the wolf survived.” She let out a fast breath of air and inhaled again. Avulstein comes from the doorway behind us and catches mother as she faints from terror. He looks at me with terror and I walk past him into my room. I slam the door, drop the backpack on the floor and fall onto my bed. Not even in bed, just laying on my stomach diagonally on my bed.

Hours and hours go by of me thinking of that damnable wolf that had pissed right beside my father’s dead body. I could feel it. Now I’m mad. I get up, grab the handle of the sword from my drawer, my favorite pair of welding goggles, and the backpack. I walk into the kitchen where everyone is mourning. I look at everyone then go grab a small loaf of bread from the bread box and leave. As I am walking up the stone stairs to the Skyforge, I could feel the warmth once again. I felt like I was going to cry again, but I didn’t. I have to get to work. First thing’s first. I grab some smithing gloves and go to the smelter that’s beside the forge, shovel some coal into it, grab some iron ore that was laying around the forge and took the corundum ore from the bag and put both of those in the smelter for those to be melted together into one ingot. After some time I had four skyforge steel ingots. I steadily inhaled and exhaled admiring the precious metal. I take one of the ingots and hold it above the roaring flames of the skyforge. After some time the ingot started to glow a radiant red. I took it over to the anvil and started to draw it out. ‘When you draw out a piece of steel, you are increasing the length of the steel and reducing the thickness. In other words, you are flattening it into the basic sword shape.’ I

could hear my father lecturing me as I was drawing out the skyforge steel. My breathing pattern shifted to the beat of my hammer. Now that I have the basic imperial sword shape, I will begin to taper the blade. ‘Tapering is used to create the tip and tang of the blade. It is accomplished by hammering at an angle, beginning at the point where the taper should start and continuing to the end of the blade.’ I work on the blade for a time and heat up the blade a little more to work on it more. Once I’m done with that I put it back into the forge to heat it up. Once the blade was red hot, I left it out to normalize, to heat it up and leave it to air cool without the smithy doing anything to it is so that it will smoothen the grain, or the crystalline form, on the metal. While its doing that I take some time to go get some real food.

 

The loaf of bread did nothing. I ran inside, went into the kitchen, where there is not one soul to be found, but there’s a pot of soup over the fire stand. I go to the cupboard and grab a bowl and a ladle and scoop up some soup. I grab a spoon and scarf it down like it was nothing. It felt good, really good. I dropped my bowl and spoon into the sink and walked back to the forge. When I get there the blade had cooled down to regular colour, so I put it back in the forge for it to heat up. Once it is once again red hot. This time the steel is heated to a point where it austenizes. ‘The iron and carbon molecules begin to mix when you austenize it the blade. After that it is left to cool once again.’

While I’m letting that cool, I’ll go get a bucket of dirt and a bucket of water and mix them together for the annealing process. ‘When you forge a sword, you will have to anneal the blade. You will have to heat it to a point for it to austenize, then you will dip it into a pool of mud. It doubles as an insulator so the blade doesn’t cool too fast. Doing this will make the blade easier to sharpen or cut.’ I keep hearing my father’s voice and it’s driving me more crazy than I already am. after fifteen minutes I come back with two buckets. One it each hand. I mix them in a large metal bucket beside the forge and dipped the steaming blade in the mixture. Once I had the blade annealing, I left it on the workbench for about five hours. The time I had been waiting, I went to go talk with my family about what had happened. By the end they had all accepted that Eorlund Gray-Mane was gone. Mother was still crying though. Avulstein came up to me and put his hand on my back almost pushing me.  
“It wasn’t your fault. Don’t blame yourself,” said Avulstein trying his best to comfort me. I just looked up at him with sad eyes, then put my head down, and walked outside. I took a walk around the walls of the city to pass the time, its about a thirty minute walk around. I can’t stop thinking about this could somehow be my fault, all I did was watch him die, thats it. I could have done something….. I could do something….. I will do something. I won’t reunite the families, I’ll bring the finished sword up to Shearpoint in honour of my father, the greatest known blacksmith in Skyrim. Hours go by until I walk back up the steps to the Skyforge. I grab the sword which is still lukewarm and I smack it on the grind stone to get some of the dried mud off of it with a pitched ‘ting’ noise. Almost all of the mud cracked off and it looks amazing, I was actually surprised. I noticed that I take a lot of time in my life to just admire the sight of things, as I do for this piece of fine work. This is skyforge steel, wow. I take a deep breath and start to sharpen the dull blade. After I’m finished sharpening it, I lightly run my finger across it and actually cut myself a little bit. I know how to do this without hurting myself, but this is so sharp that it seems just by looking at it would cut you. I picked up the blade and slid the handle onto the tang of the blade and hammer on the pommel. Its light. I give it a few swings, cutting the air in front of me. Amazingly light. I clean up my area at the forge and take the sword inside to polish it.

I’ll leave just before the sun rises. Dad kind of hammered the routine of waking up early into me so that won’t be a problem. I’ll pay a carriage a little extra so that they will wait at the bottom of Shearpoint for me to come back down after leaving the sword there. Its after dinner and I’m just in bed staring up at the Imperial Skyforge steel sword holding it up. It almost feels right though, despite the fact that I’m a Nord and our rivals are Imperials. It just feels better than a regular steel sword or especially a battleaxe. I can barely pick one of those up. I stand the blade up against the nightstand to my right and put my hands behind my head to stretch, when I start to hear my father’s voice again.  
“Honour my death. You know how to, but not like this,” I heard him say. I got up from laying down.  
“Dad?!” I exclaimed terrified because of how real that sounded. Distorted, I start to look around my room, then I slowly lay back down onto my back. I lay there for about half an hour until I doze off and go to sleep finally.

“Can you take me to Shearpoint?” I asked the carriage driver.  
“Sure can, that’ll be 50 septims,” he proclaimed.  
“How much for you to stay put at the bottom just for the time that I’m up there? I have 150 septims for you right here if you say yes.” I felt kind of bad because I was bribing the carriage driver with Mom’s money. In the early morning I snuck into her bedroom and snatched a few extra septims. She would have let if for the good of Father though… I hope.  
“Hmm….. Well I do have things for a camp here on the carriage. I guess so,” he hesitated a little bit.  
“Okay great. Thank you,” I nodded my head and got on tossing the coinpurse at him. He caught it with no problem and laughed.  
“What’s your name kid?” he asked.  
“Eldur. Eldur Gray-Mane,” I said kind of guiltily.  
“Oh! well why didn’t you say so?” He said surprised.  
“I don’t like taking advantage of the title.”  
“Fair enough,” He said. We travelled for an hour and a half and I could see  
the mountain, I felt a lump start to form in my throat, but I choke it down and look down at the wooden floor of the carriage. It only took another twenty minutes to get the the bottom. I jump off the back of the carriage and rested my left hand on the hilt of the legendary steel sword that is sheathed on the left of my hip. I breath out to see my breath. It was cloudless so there was no snow this time.  
“Well, see you at the end of it,” I said looking behind me.  
“I’ll be here,” the driver replied waving at me. I start to make my way up the side of this damn mountain, eyes glazed over staring at the white icy ground. Once I get to the flat where my father and I set camp, I pan from the left to the right to see the cave. I walk towards it and go inside. The fire was out and ash was everywhere. Our bags and blankets were ripped to shreds. I bend down to inspect the tears in the fabric. I twitch at the sound of a low deep growling behind me.

 

With my back still turned, I stand back up with my head down. I put my right hand on the handle of the sword. I know how to honour my father now, by risking my own life to avenge him. With one sound of the blade being unsheathed, the wolf jumped at me. I pivot to the right and sprint for outside. The ice wolf stops in its tracks and turns around and catches up right behind me. Once I got about ten feet outside, I spun around clockwise and swiped blindly depending on my luck and timing, and luckily, it was perfect. I smacked the ice wolf right in the side of the face causing it to tip over on its left side trying to hold itself up with its left forearm. The blade bounced off it’s face so I took advantage of the momentum and did a 360 degree turn counter-clockwise, spinning the blade over my head and upwards, slicing cleanly through the wolf’s throat. I wasn’t dead, but it was bleeding out trying to crawl somewhere. Something came over me. I felt powerful and terrified and excited all at the same time. I took the blade with two hands and cleaved the head of the wolf with several blows to the neck. Blood got on my face and my hands. I watch the head separate from the body, my hands start to shake ferociously the blade suddenly becomes heavy in my hands so I drop the sword and slump down. I stare at the wolf’s body with trauma in my eyes. I start to hyperventilate and cry. I felt like I couldn’t breath. It was terrifying. I get on my hands and knees and watch tears fall onto my bloody hands. My hands and the ground start to go blurry. I blink really hard, finally catching my breath. I get up cautiously, grab the fur of the head of the wolf, sheathe the Skyforge steel, and bless my father. I proceed to make my way down to the carriage.

The carriage driver didn’t ask any questions. He knew the whole story. I told him on the way To Shearpoint. He drops me off at the gate of the city and I go in. At the entrance where two guards are posted see me, but they don’t leave their place.  
“God’s above…” one of them said in a disgusted tone. I’m glad I couldn’t see their face, that would probably affect me more than him saying that. I walk towards the Battle-Born house, unsheathed the blade, and let myself in. I could hear all the family members laughing and talking at the table. They were having a feast, but they were all silenced by the sound of a blade being stuck into their table. I bead of blood slowly trails down the blade.  
“A gift…. From the Gray-Manes,” I said shakily, but proudly. The only sound you would hear was one of the Battle-Born children gasp and hide behind his father, Idolaf.  
“Get out,” said Idolaf deeply and angrily. I slowly walk away and out of the house. Mother saw me walking towards Home and she ran at me. Seeing her made me faint and she caught me. The head of the wolf leaves my hand and rolls beside her. She hugs me toughly.  
“You honour your father. He will bless you from Sovngarde for all eternity,” Mother cried. I caught my balance and hugged her back.

A month has passed since the death of Dad. We now have the head of the ice wolf mounted on a plaque above the hearthside of our home. The Battle-Borns did not accept the gift I had bestowed upon them, we are still enemies, but now we keep the blade crossed behind the wolf’s head. I run the Skyforge now. I get to go there everyday to help make weapons for the Whiterun guard. It’s good money, but thats not what I worry about. Creating things to make peace is now my life. I trust whoever I make them for to use them only for peace. The wolf was a reminder of how horrible this world is, you just have to stop those things. Kill them. I may sound like a hypocrite saying that due to the brutality that was expressed in my actions on the wolf, but I’m a Nord. A viking. We’re known for our brute strength, our stubbornness, and our ignorance. My father, Eorlund Gray Mane, I know he looks down at me from Sovngarde and when or if I see him there, we can make weapons for the other heroes that are up there with him for eternity.

 

The End.


End file.
